1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic postal scales, and more particularly to an electronic postal scale for computing a postal charge in which a postal charge of a package is automatically calculated based on a weight, a destination, a postal type, a postal rate and the like.
2. Prior Art
The postal charge differs based on a postal type, a destination, a weight, a postal rate, a type of a required postal service etc. of the package. Conventionally, electronic postal scales are applied for rapidly calculating the postal charge and for efficiently completing a postal business at counter. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,221 disclosed a computing postal scale comprised of a scale portion for measuring the weight of the package, a memory portion for storing a charge information such as postal rates and postal services therein and an operating portion for depressing keys to select desirable charge information when measuring the weight of the package. The postal charge is calculated by use of the measured weight of the package and the selected charge information.
In the present specification, "package (postal package)"and "postal charge" don't mean those delivered by a communication enterprise of a government only. But the package and the postal charge respectively include a parcel delivered by a private postal company and a delivering charge of the private postal company.
In case of U.S.A., several postal companies such as the UPS (United Parcel Service), the USPS (United States Postal Service) and the FED (Federal Express) perform postal business with independent rates and independent additional services thereby. In addition, the rates are different between a domestic postal service and a foreign postal service even in the same postal company. Furthermore, the rates are subdivided into a complicated classification based on the postal type of the package (an ordinary mail, an express delivery mail or a registered mail), a type of the package (a magazine or a parcel) and a form of the package (a fixed form or an unfixed form).
In addition, the postal charge also differs by the weight of the package, the destination and an additional service (add on service). In case of the UPS, for example, extra charges are added to the amount of the postal charge by the additional services such as a COD (Collect On Delivery), an AOD (Acknowledgment Of Delivery), an AC (Address Correction), a DV (Declared Value) and the like.
Hence, it can be considered that electronic postal scale can be produced in correspondence with each postal rate, however, the kinds of the electronic postal scale must be increased and much time will be wasted in aspects of a production and a management.
Thus, an all-in-one system of the electronic postal scale can be considered as a system for storing all rates of postal companies so that the electronic postal scale can be used regardless of rates. However, following disadvantages will be occurred in this case.
(1) The operating portion includes many keys each of which corresponds to one rate or one service, however, the number of the keys becomes increasing because many rates and services must be involved. Hence, the size of the operating portion becomes large and the system thereof becomes complicated so that the operation becomes extremely difficult and many operation errors must be occurred.
(2) In order to avoid the above disadvantage, a double function constitution can be employed. In this case, one key corresponds to two and more rates or services, hence, the number of the keys is reduced. However, the operation becomes further worse than the above case.
On the other hand, the conventional electronic postal scale can only calculate and display the amount of the postal charge with regard to the measured weight of the package, the required rate, the required service, the delivering destination and the others.
Therefore, independent printers separated from the body of the electronic postal scale must be required to print the calculated postal charge on a certificate stamp or a label. The printers comprise of two independent printers such as a journal printer and a printer for printing the certificate stamp and the label. The journal printer prints data of the published certificate stamp and label on a continuous sheet (hereinafter, a continuous sheet will be referred to as a receipt sheet, for convenience' sake). Hence, the conventional electronic postal scale suffers a problem in that the price thereof becomes very high and the location area thereof becomes large.